CLS reports average daily traded volumes in February 2017 were USD1.5 trillion 

CLS, multicurrency cash settlement system operator, has issued a report to publish the foreign exchange (FX) trading activity for February 2017.

The report is based on trade data submitted to CLS in operation of their settlement and aggregation services.

CLS has issued the below report: 

FX market overview

Average daily traded volumes in February 2017 were USD1.5 trillion, up 2.8 percent compared to January. This increase may be due to seasonally higher volumes in February as volumes were down 2 percent on a year-on-year basis (ie compared to February 2016).

As shown in Figure 1, the year-on-year increase in overall volumes was not seen across all products.
While FX swaps were up 9.6 percent, compared to a year ago, contributing USD978 billion to the
total, spot trades were down 23 percent and contributed USD427 billion. Outright forwards were also
up, 16 percent, and contributed USD92 billion to the total volume.

Monthly comparisons, such as those above, are always vulnerable to short-term fluctuations (in either
the current or comparison month), but Figure 2 shows that these changes were part of a longer-term
trend of declining spot volumes, but growing FX swap activity.

Spot market

Having reviewed the overall FX market, we now focus on the spot market. We look first at trends in
monthly volumes, then at daily volumes and finally at hourly volumes within the month.

Monthly spot volumes

As was noted previously, spot volumes have been in decline over the last several months, but this
pattern is not seen across all currency pairs. Figure 3 shows that while the most traded currency
pairs declined signficantly compared to a year ago, volumes in some of the smaller pairs, in particular
USDSGD, USDSEK and USDDKK grew significantly this month compared to last year. It should be
noted however that their contribution to overall volumes remains small.

Read the full report HERE

Source: CLS

---